The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventors, to the extent the work is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description that may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the present disclosure.
A clothing article (e.g., a T-shirt) may be pre-constructed and mass produced to create a large number of the same clothing article. The clothing article has a standardized size with standardized patterns. The standardized patterns of a T-shirt may include, for example, a front pattern, a back pattern, sleeve patterns, and a neck (or collar) pattern. As an alternative, a clothing article may have a non-standardized size and non-standardized patterns and be individually constructed to provide a customized end result.
Artwork designs can be applied to fabric of a clothing article. The artwork designs can be applied subsequent to sewing fabric patterns together to form the clothing article (i.e. after the clothing article is manufactured). As an example, an artwork design (e.g., text and/or a 2D image) may be created on a computer. An output file of the artwork design may be transferred from the computer to a printer. The printer may print dye onto heat transfer (or sublimation) paper in a form of the artwork design. The clothing article may be flattened and the heat transfer paper may be set on the clothing article and placed in a heat press to transfer the printed artwork design onto the clothing article.
As an alternative, one or more artwork designs may be applied to fabric portions of a clothing article prior to the fabric portions being sewed together. In this example, the one or more designs are printed on a sheet of heat transfer paper such that the one or more artwork designs are in pattern areas of the heat transfer paper. The pattern areas refer to areas corresponding to patterns of the clothing article. As an example, a large sheet of heat transfer paper may have corresponding surface areas for each pattern of a clothing article. Artwork designs to be applied on portions (a front portion, a back portion, and sleeve portions) of the clothing article may be printed in areas of the sheet of heat transfer paper. The heat transfer paper is then laid on fabric and placed within a heat press. Dimensions of the fabric may be similar to dimensions of the sheet of heat transfer paper. Heat is applied to transfer the artwork design from the heat transfer paper to the fabric. The fabric is then cut to provide fabric patterns, which are then sewed together to provide the end assembled clothing article.